Super Bowl success: How advisers play big in the big game

By Daniel Williams

LifeHealthPro

Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers will be getting the headlines over the next week. They planned and trained for years for this one moment as more than 100 million people in America alone will be tuned in to Super Bowl XLV.

As an adviser, what are you doing to prepare yourself for big-game success? Do you have a plan in place to help you achieve your goals, to help you reach your own Super Bowl?

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been reading Brian Tracy’s excellent book, “Flight Plan: The Real Secret of Success.” And if there’s one thing that’s perfectly clear, it doesn’t matter if you’re a professional football player or a topnotch adviser; you need to prepare if you want to succeed.

As Tracy writes: “To achieve greatly, you need clear goals, plans, and schedules to get from wherever you are today to wherever you want to be in the future. You need a flight plan that you file before you begin and that you use to guide you on your journey.”

So you want 2011 to be your year to reach the Super Bowl? How do you do it? According to Tracy, you “dedicate yourself to continuous learning, to nonstop personal and professional development. Read in your field daily, listen to educational CDs in your car, attend seminars to learn new skills, and take additional live and online courses.”

In short, you’re never too big within your own universe to stop learning and growing as an adviser. There’s always room for improvement. Take our reigning Adviser of the Year, Van Mueller, as an example. When asked about his own mentors and sources of inspiration, he had this to say:

“I’ve always felt that in order to be successful, you have to offer something unique — this is what Dan Sullivan says about developing your own unique abilities — so I love to read, a lot.

“I became known for all that information that I’ve gathered. And I try to emulate the best … Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Ed Slott, all of the MDRT, NAIFA and GAMA leadership. You just have to remember that the secret of life is what you give, not what you get.”